A group of mental health professionals has launched a website to share integrative treatment strategies, which includes advice on the use of herbal products, the group announced Tuesday.

The International Network of Integrative Mental Health (INIMH) counts among its membership medical doctors, psychologists, allied health clinicians, and academics who are interested in incorporating alternative therapies with mainstream medicine.

Our whole mission is about figuring out the ways to combine the best of Western medicine with alternative and integrative therapies, Carol Viezer, a founding member of the INIMH, told NutraIngredients-USA.

Key among these strategies is to look at a patients nutritional status, an item often given only cursory attention in mainstream psychological workups. That includes a careful look at what herbal supplements a patient might be taking or might be recommended and how they might interact with or be contraindicated by their prescription medications.

If you believe that herbal products can help patients with mental difficulties as part of an integrated approach, you need to treat them with respect, said Veizer, who is a practicing psychologist.

Herbals are very serious medicine, she said. It is important to look a patient from a whole person perspective, and understand everything they put into their bodies.

Group shares integration strategies

The INIMH was founded in 2010 by 16 mental health practitioners located around the globe. The group has since expanded to 24 professionals.

According to the group, the practice of "integrative mental healthcare" adopts a model that uses an integrated approach to addressing biological, psychological, and sociological determinants of mental illness.

A combination of mainstream interventions such as pharmacological treatments and psychosocial interventions with evidence-based non-conventional therapeutics (such as nutritional medicine, dietary and exercise modification, acupuncture, select herbal medicines, and mindfulness meditation), are often prescribed.

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Mental health group shares herbal treatment strategies